Max Reinhard Jaehn: Richard Wagners Rheingold-Orgelbsse 1889 am Schweriner Hoftheater
During rehearsals for the first
Bayreuth production of Rheingold in 1876, Wagner added an organ to the instrumentation
of the initial E-flat chord to fortify the bass, an instruction that was correctly handed down and included in the complete edition of 1988. Since BayreuthÕs organ was not kept
after WagnerÕs death, an exact tonal realization of this addition remained hypothetical. However, the first performance
of Rheingold in Schwerin in 1889 replicated
BayreuthÕs instrumentation.
Especially enlarged for the premiere,
SchwerinÕs concert organ
has survived, and thanks to
its unaltered tonal properties gives evidence to the former aggregate sound at Bayreuth. That an organ was adopted in Schwerin
also supports the fact that the
composer did not abandon the
instrumentation after Bayreuth,
which has been assumed due to the organÕs later
removal there, and that already one decade
after 1876, this feature was associated with traditional performance practice.
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